Brent Mitchell owns Battlefords Bait and Tackle, a local business that has been in the community for nearly 40 years and is a popular destination for local gun enthusiasts to stock up on ammunition.  (Kenneth Cheung/ battlefordsNOW staff)

By Kenneth Cheung

2024 GUN BAN

New federal gun ban targets legal owners, not criminals: Sask. firearm businesses

Dec 11, 2024 | 7:00 AM

With the federal government’s decision to add 324 firearms to its gun ban last Thursday to tackle crime, Saskatchewan gun businesses believe the ban affects legal, law-abiding gun owners more than criminals.

This time is an addition to a prior ban outlawing more than 1,500 different guns in 2020, following a mass shooting in Portapique, N.S., which killed 22 people.

James Brake, manager of Arnie’s Gun and Archery in Prince Albert, shared that as guns killed his parents, he deeply understands the chaos firearms cause; however, he believes the society needs to realize that “It’s people killing people, not the guns.”

“You have uneducated people making laws that don’t understand the matrix. They don’t understand how guns play in society and in the West. Here, it is our culture,” Brake said.

“It’s about malicious intent and the desire to do terrible things, and that’s not what the legal, licensed community is about.”

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He stated that gun crime has increased since the initial ban on handguns and AR-15s in 2020.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2022, the police reported around 14,000 firearm-related violent crimes, a rise of 1,400 incidents from the previous year. This equates to 36.7 incidents per 100,000 people, an 8.9 per cent increase from 2021, marking the highest rate since data collection began in 2009.

“Putting these guns on regulation or exempt it, all it does is takes a legal gun owner that has a permit, bought the gun permit, takes it away from them, but it hasn’t done anything to the criminals that are not worried about it being legal or illegal,” said Brent Mitchell, owner of Battleford Bait and Tackle.

Noting that there is no enforcement or implementation of the buy-back program, making illegal firearms is just “sitting in a stalemate” with no regulation.

Mitchell refers to the Assault Style Firearms Compensation Program (ASFCP), a program through which the government compensates businesses and owners affected by the ban. This program began with select businesses but has not been opened to all.

“We have not received a penny, and nobody has talked to us, so the business owner has to take that as a loss,” Brake added when discussing the buy-back program from four years ago when the first gun ban was implemented.

Mitchell believes the likelihood of them being sold illegally will ultimately put the community in more danger.

“It opens up the black market now by 324 per cent because that’s how many guns were taken off the list. So it’s opened it up for them bigger and bigger, bigger. They’re never going to comply, never going to comply.” he repeated.

As the federal government also said that they would send the newly-banned guns to the Ukrainian government to support their fight against Russia’s invasion, both agree it is achieving nothing.

“I’m not sure what crackpot figured that, but if we’re taking them out of Canada from killing people, then we’re sending them to Ukraine to kill people. We’re still killing people,” Mitchell said.

“These guns that they’re talking about are not even anywhere close to military grade. I mean, they, you know, you’re going to go to war with a .22. Come on, I mean, that’s not going to happen. It’s David and Goliath we’re talking about here,” Mitchell added.

Brake added that one of the guns being sent to Ukraine was a .22-long rifle, a gun normally used for things like shooting squirrels and targets.

Looking ahead, as the ban is putting most gun businesses in a tough spot, Mitchell believes that it will temporarily boost sales by nearly 90 per cent.

“Why the ammunition and gun sales sky-rocket is because people believe that the government is going to take it away,” said Mitchell.

Pointing out that guns are a prevalent aspect of life in the province, he explained that as soon as people hear about regulation changes, they often rush to stock up on supplies.

“People are panicking, and they just want to get their guns in as soon as possible. They’re buying them like crazy, and they want the ammunition, so that’s how we get our calls,” he added.

He went on to mention one of his business partners sold nearly $100,000 worth of firearms once the ban was announced, noting that sales would typically only reach a daily average of around $8,000.

Although some experienced a surge in sales, Brake is expected to see a 20 to 25 per cent drop in sales.

“First of all, we lost handguns, which was a big percentage of our sales. Then, we lost all semi-automatics. That’s another percentage of our sales. It reduced our capability to make money,” Brake said.

“Very upset because it has nothing to do with crime or public safety. It has to do with ideology and optics,” Brake noted.

In addition to its long-term impact on their livelihoods, they both believe the new ban is impractical for addressing crime. Instead, they argue, it will only encourage people to seek out firearms through illegal means.

They also hope that should a new government be elected in 2025, it will recognize the complexities surrounding gun-related crimes and address it as an issue stemming from criminals rather than targeting licensed gun owners.

“If you take the one gun away from the honest person, the bad guy still has a gun,” Mitchell stated.

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Kenneth.Cheung@pattisonmedia.com